Cornflour Paste Sensory Writing

It’s great to write on a paper with a pen and all. Everyone once in a while when the interest to write/mark make wanes it is simple to bring back the lost zeal with a fun new writing surface. We have used salt trays and corn meal as a writing surface to aid pre school writing and even toddler mark making. Today sensory writing activity involves corn flour paste Make a watery paste by adding water to a bowl of cornflour (not cornstarch) When you add water to cornstarch you get oobleck/goop. This is cornflour and is very fine and not as sticky as cornstarch. Cornflour comes in 2 colors: yellow and white. Once you have cornflour paste ready add a few drops of paint/food color to spice things up.

That’s your material for this writing surface. Armed with the paste the kids started preparing the surface. They used cards to apply the paste on a sheet of cardstock paper. You can make this a fantastic sensory experience by having the kids use their hands to start smearing paste on the paper. By using a card, it creates a different yet equally great experience of using a card as a painting tool. It also requires a good deal of manual dexterity to hold the card at a certain angle to get the paste fully on the paper. Toddlers might need help.

Once the paper has been generously applied with the corn flour paste, it is time to get writing. We used fingers and bamboo skewers. If you are uncomfortable with sharp objects, fingers are good enough. I decorated a bamboo skewer with a bow from a party gift bag and make the “pencil” a bit colorful. My toddler had a fun time mark making using her fingers. At her age, sensory writing is the best way to encourage mark making and pre-writing.

We also made handprints on the paste.

We also explored patterning with a fork on the paste and saw it make beautiful patterns on the paper.

We “wrote” some more and I noticed that the skewer was a wonderful tool to write because it pretty much mimicked a pencil.

For kids who need a little bit of encouragement to write, this kind of writing equipment would be great simply because it is not a pencil. Accessorize the writing equipment to match the child’s interests.Note: the paper did not rip because it had a pretty solid coating of corn flour paste

My preschooler was kind of excited enough to actually write “wow”. That was pretty funny

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